


The Weight On Their Shoulders

by EclecticMuse



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Post The Devil Complex, Post-Episode 5x14, Psychological Trauma, pregnancy mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-07 16:02:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14084505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EclecticMuse/pseuds/EclecticMuse
Summary: Jemma goes to visit Fitz again down in holding. Post-episode 5x14 'The Devil Complex'





	The Weight On Their Shoulders

**Author's Note:**

> Like many of you, I'm still struggling to sort through my feelings about the episode. This is part of my attempt to process and steer things in a direction I hope the show will go. Unbeta'd so if it's garbage...well, go easy on me.

It was two days before Jemma was able to bring herself to go see Fitz down in holding.

She had been too devastated at first, still reeling from what he had done, to feel like she could handle it. She didn’t _want_ to leave him alone by himself, where he was surely suffocating under the weight of his own remorse and self-recrimination, but she didn’t know what she could say. She was still struggling to process everything and what it meant--for the team, for Fitz, for her and Fitz together.

Jemma had kept mostly to herself since everything had happened. Daisy was angry and bitter, May was focused on finding Coulson, and she honestly didn’t know how Mack and Elena felt; the other woman hadn’t said anything about it whenever Jemma came to check on her and monitor her recovery, but she could always feel her eyes on her. Not judgmental, just closely observing, but Jemma didn’t know how to take it. So she said nothing either, only sticking to the basics of what she needed to ensure Elena’s proper care.

The only person who regularly spoke to her was Deke. He had become her shadow in the time since, always following her around, making sure she tried to get some sleep, encouraging her to eat, standing guard outside the bathroom whenever she got sick. She still didn’t know what to make of the revelation that he was, in fact, her grandson, but she was almost grateful for his attention. She was afraid that everyone hated her now through association with Fitz, but Deke’s patient loyalty was proof that someone, at least, still cared.

And it was Deke’s gentle pleas that gave her the strength to make her way down to holding. “Fitz needs you right now,” he’d said quietly as he presented her with a mug of tea that she’d taught him how to make. “I can’t pretend I understand what you’re feeling and thinking. I just know what I know. And that’s that you two can make it through this. Remember what I said?”

Jemma had nodded, her eyes focused on her tea. _The steps you take don’t need to be big. They just need to take you in the right direction_. Her own words, said with such conviction by the man in front of her, who she barely knew, but was her _grandson_. He’d given her a faint spark of hope, and that hope was what carried her down the elevator to where holding was, even as her chest constricted with apprehension.

When she came into the outer room, Jemma could see Fitz sitting on the bed facing away from her, his arms balanced on his knees and his head hung low between his shoulders. Her first thought was of overwhelming bittersweet longing--she missed him, she wanted him by her side. The man she loved was in pain and she couldn’t take it away from him. But she was still trying to reconcile the good man she loved with the man who had tortured Daisy, who had trained a gun on her and Deke.

She approached the window. “Fitz,” she said quietly.

His head lifted at the sound of her voice, but there was a pause before he twisted to look around at her. “Jemma?” he asked, his voice hoarse. “Is that really you?”

Her mind flashed back to a time where he had asked her the very same thing, and it made a lump rise in her throat. “Yes,” she replied thickly, nodding her head. “It’s really me. I promise.”

Fitz nodded slowly back, looking away and worrying at the wedding band on his finger. “I didn’t think you would come back.”

The lump in her throat swelled, threatening to choke her. “Fitz…” Jemma swallowed to fight back the tears that were threatening. “I...I’m still processing all of this, but please...don’t ever think for one second that I would abandon you.”

He kept twisting his ring around his finger. “You did once before,” he mumbled.

Jemma squeezed her eyes shut. She thought they’d worked past all of that, but it made sense that that would be plaguing him right now. She wanted to chastise herself for not coming down sooner, but she couldn’t. Not fully. She hadn’t been ready. Opening her eyes, she steeled herself. “Fitz,” she said again. “It’s different now. _I’m_ different. I know we--we didn’t actually say the words, but, for better or worse--I meant it. With all of my heart. That’s not something I can just go back on.”

Fitz raised his head to look at her again, and his expression was pure anguish. “How?” he rasped. “How can you not hate me for what I’ve done? Not just to--to Daisy, to Mack, but to you? I’m not a good man, Jemma. How can you even look at me?”

Jemma took in a shaky breath. “Because I love you,” she said, her voice brimming with emotion. “And I believe that you _are_ a good man. I...I don’t know how we’ll get through this, Fitz, but...I have to have faith that we can. I have to try.”

Shaking his head, Fitz buried his face in his hands for a long moment before dragging them off, but he keep his gaze pointed toward the floor. “You don’t understand, Jemma,” he said lowly. “That wasn’t some fear manifestation or, or a programmed simulation of me. It was me. _Me. I_ did that.” He jabbed a finger at his chest, his tone dripping with self-loathing. “I am the Doctor, and the Doctor is me. There’s no separating us. Because I still think I did the right thing.” He shook his head. “You should leave me locked up down here for good. It’s the only way any of you will ever be safe from me.”

Jemma hated listening to Fitz talk about himself that way, and it made the tears brimming in her eyes finally spill over. She stepped closer to the window, pressing her fingertips along the bottom of it. “Please, Fitz,” she begged. “Please. Let me help you. I--I can’t lose you.”

“I think you already have,” he replied quietly, his head still bowed.

Jemma shook her head even though he couldn’t see her, feeling utterly distraught.”No,” she said quickly, “no. Fitz, I--”

She cut off, unsure if she should say what she was thinking. She was desperate for a way to get through to him, and what she had to tell him might only make things worse, but she told herself that he had a right to know. The longer she kept it from him, the worse the fallout might be. She took in another shuddering breath, she summoned up her frayed resolve.

“Fitz, I’m pregnant,” she whispered.

Fitz’s head shot up, his eyes wide as they connected with hers. Then he stood quickly, and took one halting step forward. “You--” he choked. “Jemma--?”

Jemma nodded and swiped at her cheeks, tears rolling down them. “I wanted this to be happy news,” she said wetly. “I wanted--”

“But it’s not, because I’m a monster,” Fitz cut in, clenching his hands into fists and looking away again.

“Fitz, _no_ ,” Jemma cried. Biting back a sob, she looked to the door that connected her room with Fitz’s, locked from her side. “I want to come in.”

Fitz whipped back around. “No, Jemma, I really don’t think--”

“ _Please_ ,” she blurted.

He stared at her for a long moment, frozen, before he finally gave one short, terse nod of his head. Jemma immediately went to the door and unlocked it, opening it slowly and stepping inside. Fitz’s eyes were darting between herself and the door, like he was afraid of her, or he didn’t trust himself not to take advantage of the door being open and bolt. Jemma approached him carefully, not wanting to spook him. When she was a hand’s length away, she stopped and looked up at him. Up close she could see that his hair was unkempt, as if he’d been constantly tugging at it and raking his hands through, and there were dark circles smudged beneath his eyes. Once again, her heart went out to him, wanting nothing more than to ease his suffering and make things right--for the both of them. For everyone.

Fitz watched as Jemma lifted her hands to him, uncertain; they hovered between them before finally coming to rest lightly on his chest. He tensed, but he didn’t pull away. Taking courage from that, she slowly wrapped her arms around his middle, stepping forward and exhaling as she rested her cheek against his shoulder. After a pause, she felt Fitz’s arms come around her in turn, his hands feather-light on her shoulders. She could still feel that he was holding himself back from her, but it was still a start. She would take it.

_The steps don’t have to be big._

Jemma lost track of how long they stood that way, silently holding each other, but when her heart felt like it was pounding a little less painfully in her chest and her urge to sob no longer overwhelmed her, she tried to speak again.

“Fitz,” she said. “You have to let me help you. If you can’t do it for me…” She stopped, sniffling, and tried again. “I want our child to know their father. And I hope--I _believe_ \--that you would be nothing but the best father in the universe.”

“How can you know that?” Fitz whispered brokenly, as though he didn’t dare to believe her.

She thought of what Deke said again, how he’d spoken so fondly of Fitz and said that it all came from his mother. It wasn’t her story to tell him, and she rather felt that one big revelation was enough for today. But she took the hope that Deke had given her and held onto it tight, just as tightly as she was holding Fitz.

“Because I know you better than you know yourself, sometimes,” she whispered, taking a leaf from Deke’s book. She breathed in, listening to the steady thump of Fitz’s heartbeat beneath her ear, and willed every ounce of love she felt for him to shine through in her words. “They couldn’t convince me that you were a bad man in the Framework, and you can’t convince me now. This...this won’t be easy. But I want to help you through this. I want you to _let me_ help you through this. Because we have a future together...and I’m not going to let some silly curse try to take that from us.”

Fitz huffed quietly, a mere puff of breath that almost, _almost_ felt like it had a ghost of humor to it.

Keeping her arms around him, Jemma lifted her head just enough to be able to look him in the eye again. “Do you trust me?” she asked.

Fitz bit his lip before nodding slightly.

She gave him a small, soft smile, the best she could do at the moment. “I know you can’t trust yourself right now,” she continued. “So trust me. We can work through this. You, me, everyone. I--I want you to be honest with me, and--tell me, when you see him or hear him. I want to help you, but I can’t if you don’t let me in. We’ve always worked better together, haven’t we?” Fitz nodded again, slowly, his eyes caught on hers. Jemma wanted to believe that he believed in her, but everything was so broken. At least he was listening to her now. Giving him another tiny smile, she pressed her hands into his back, her chest constricting with emotion. “Will you let me do this for you?” she asked tremulously. “...My husband?”

The tears in Fitz’s eyes finally fell as his face crumpled. Jemma tightened her arms around him and did her best to keep her gaze steady on his, open, letting everything she felt for him show through--her trust, her faith, her resolve. Finally, he nodded again. “I...I can try,” he whispered, his chin trembling.

Jemma’s smile widened briefly before she stepped back in to turn her face into his neck, letting herself try to find a measure of calm in the fact that Fitz was letting her hold him, and willing to let her try. This didn’t solve everything--not by a long shot--but it was a beginning, and she was prepared to see it through to the end. They could come out of this; they could still be the family she wanted to have with him. He could begin to heal.

The steps he took didn’t need to be big. They just needed to be in the right direction.


End file.
